Pre-Shape Timing
Quick question for the more experienced bakers out there (which on this site is just about everybody). As far as I understand the point of the preshape is to get the dough into an easier shape to handle for the final shaping and then you have to bench rest to relax the gluten before you can proceed further and do the final shaping otherwise the gluten will resist the final shape.
Assuming i am correct, is there any reason not to pre-shape early. For example if i am bulk fermenting 1000g of dough to make 3 baguettes of 333g each is there any reason (after all the folds) not to pre-shape right away, let it finish its bulk fermentation in each preshaped shape and then when i am ready for the final shaping just shape it, thereby avoiding the need for a bench rest, since the gluten has relaxed already and its already in its shape, or is there something I am missing (aside from proper grammar and sentence structure in this post)
I think the loaf won't hold it's "pre-shape" shape at all if you do it too early. Think about the bulk ferment - this is the time that after each stretch and fold and dough just relaxes back into a blob. Therefore, if you shape the dough, it will just continue to lose its shape. In fact, the process of doing stretch and folds during the bulk ferment is very similar to pre-shaping dough! If you really don't want to pre-shape then don't. Some people just take the dough and shape it once the bulk ferment is complete.